Deep packet inspection (DPI) is a network packet filtering approach that examines the data section and headers of packets transmitted to or from a network device. DPI is used for advanced network management, such as data mining, eavesdropping, censorship, compliance, and detection of viruses, spam, intrusions, or defined criteria to decide whether to allow the packet to pass, route the packet to a different destination, or otherwise save or take note of the packet for statistical information. Physical DPI equipment often sits on the edge of a network and performs packet inspection before packets are transmitted outside of the network or permitted within the network. Inspecting data packets at the line rate (e.g., tens of gigabytes per second) to avoid packet transmission latency is a daunting challenge that includes custom hardware and, therefore, a large capital investment. While some cloud service providers offer DPI solutions, the round trip delays of remote packet inspection results in undesirable delays in network traffic.